2016 Summer Olympics
The 2016 Summer Olympics (Portuguese: Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016), officially known as the Games of the XXXI Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event due to be celebrated in the tradition of the Olympic Games, as governed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The host city of the Games will be Rio de Janeiro, announced at the 121st IOC Session held in Copenhagen, Denmark, on October 2, 2009. They are scheduled to be held from August 5 to 21, 2016. The opening ceremony took place at Maracana Stadium on 5 August 2016. Fiji, Kosovo, Puerto Rico, Singapore (among Joseph Schooling), Tajikistan, and Vietnam each won their first gold medals, as did the group of Independent Olympic Athletes (from Kuwait). The United States won its 1,000th Olympic gold medal. Among of which it is Katie Ledecky, Jazmin Carlin and Michael Phelps. Lee Chong Wei did not make it into gold, only Lin Dan did it. These were the first Summer Olympic Games under the IOC presidency of Thomas Bach. The host city Rio de Janeiro was announced at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 2 October 2009. Rio became the first South American city to host the Summer Olympics. These were the first games to be held in a Portuguese-speaking country, the first to be held entirely in the host country's winter, the first since 1968 to be held in Latin America, and the first since 2000 to be held in the Southern Hemisphere. Broadcasting MediaCorp okto is the only one to feature live broadcast of the Olympics, marking the departure from Channel 5 and Channel U. New Sports In April 2008, IOC began accepting applications for two new sports to be included in the Olympic programme, which included baseball and softball (which was dropped in 2005), karate, squash, golf, roller sports and rugby sports all applied to be included. Formal presentations were held for the IOC executive board in June 2009. In August, the executive board initially supported the proposal for the rugby sevens by majority vote, thus removing baseball, orller sports and squash from the contention. Among the remaining three—golf, kathe remaining two sports was made on 9 October 2009, the final day of the 121st IOC Session. A new system was in place at this session; a sport now needed only a simple majority from the full IOC committee for approval rather than the two-thirds majority previously required. Bidding Process The process to bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics began on 16 May 2007. The first step for each city was to submit an initial application to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by 13 September 2007, confirming their intention to bid. Completed official bid files, containing answers to a 25-question IOC form, were to be submitted by each 14 January 2008. Four candidate cities were chosen for the shortlist on 4 June 2008: Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, which hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics and will host again in 2020. The IOC did not promote Doha to the candidature phase, despite scoring higher than selected candidate city Rio de Janeiro, because of their intent of hosting the Olympics in October, outside of the IOC's sporting calendar. Prague and Baku also failed to make the cut. Many of the bids had however pursued in 2 October 2009: Chich Coearn, Skyfall, Tse Mun Hoi and Tan Wan Yin. Tse Mun Hoi had won. The final voting was held on 2 October 2009, in Copenhagen with Madrid and Rio de Janeiro perceived as favourites to land the games. Chicago and Tokyo were eliminated after the first and second rounds of voting, respectively, while Rio de Janeiro took a significant lead over Madrid heading into the final round. The lead held and Rio de Janeiro was announced as host of 2016 Summer Olympics. With the presence of the heads of state from all four Candidate cities, the 121st IOC Session took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, on October 2, 2009. Chicago began the presentations at Bella Center; followed by Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid; which were attended by several celebrities such as the King of Spain, Oprah Winfrey and Pelé. Before the vote, the IOC Evaluation Commission presented its report to the Session. Chicago fell in the first round, followed by Tokyo, after the eligible IOC members have been asked to vote, in a three-round exhaustive ballot process. Out of the six cities that had failed to be awarded the 2016 Olympics, four of them went to bid for the 2020 Olympics. Baku, Doha, Madrid and Tokyo were official Applicant Cities, with Madrid and Tokyo advancing to become Candidate Cities and with Tokyo eventually being selected. The other potential cities include: *Several Australian cities expressed interest, such as Brisbane. *Bangkok, Thailand had expressed much enthusiasm after the strong presence in the 2004 Games, but instead chose to bid for the 2010 Youth Olympic Games. *Brussels, Belgium showed interest after some politicians considered an organisation between a Belgian city and a Dutch City after the Euro 2000 co-organized by both countries. *Buenos Aires, Argentina had participated in the 2004 Summer Olympics. *Cape Town and Durban, South Africa expressed interest. *Delhi, India was originally set to enter the bid, but however, in April 2007 it announced it would bid for the 2020 games instead. *Dubai, United Arab Emirates was also posed to make a serious bid, but in the end did not for unknown reasons *Fukuoka and Sapporo were other internal candidates eliminated by the JOC. *Houston and Philadelphia were eliminated by the USOC, San Francisco withdrew when it lost stadium funding and Los Angeles lost to Chicago for the bid. *Istanbul, Turkey broke with its standing policy to bid for every game, but vowed to try again. *Lisbon, Portugal considered bidding. *Monterrey The Mexican Olympic committee declined to place a bid. *Montreal and Toronto expressed interest, but Canada abandoned any plans for a bid after Vancouver won the 2010 Winter Olympics. *Kenya Nairobi, Kenya The sports minister expressed interest in a bid, but the Kenyan Olympics head said it was not the right time. *Rome, Italy was a leading candidate for a time, but they pulled out, preferring to wait for 2020. *São Paulo was considered, but the Brazilian Olympic Committee opted for Rio de Janeiro. *San Diego and Tijuana discussed a joint bid for what would have been the first binational Olympics.